The NGOs and trade union groups participating in the second
world conference being held here have rejected the report of the
Water Commission and the vision document for the 21st century
produced by the World Water Council, an international think tank
set up to bring water on to the agenda of goverments and people
movements.

These two reports are being discussed to prepare a road plan
for ensuring access to safe drinking water and sanitation to all
in the 21st century and conservation and protection of water
resources.

PARALLEL MEET: The NGOs in a statement on Tuesday to
the parallel ministerial conference being held here to secure the
support of governments for its agenda expressed serious concerns
about the process and contents of the framework of action.

''The process is dominated by technocratic and top-down
thinking, resulting in documents which emphasise a corporate
vision of privatisation, large scale investments and
biotechnology as the key answers,`` said the NGOs.

''The process gives insufficient emphasis and recognition of
the rights, knowledge and experience of local people and
communities and the need to manage water in ways that protect
natural ecosystems, the source of all water.

FLAWED PROCESS: ''The statement, however, supported the
process of community-based participation spelled out in the
vision 21 document but it said the mechanisms for integrating it
into an overall process is flawed, it said.

The NGOs have called for transparency and accountability in
the functioning of the World Water Council, and the Global Water
Partnership forged by the council members.

Their work should be regularly reviewed by the United Nations,
through the Commission for Sustainable Development, and by the
stakeholders themselves.

The NGOs have demanded that a clean, healthy environment and
access to basic water and sanitation being universal rights
should not be negotiated as commodities.

UNFAIR DISPENSATION: They should therefore be removed
from the General Agreement on Trade and Services and the agenda
of the World Trade Organisation. Food and water insecurity are
linked to the current unfair global trade system administered by
the WTO rules, it said.

The NGOs demanded that access to information should be ensured
and legal and institutional mechanisms put in place to facilitate
participation of communities at all levels.

An agenda for restoring and rehabilitating the degraded
ecosystems which are the major water sources, should be adopted
since the key to sustainable provision of water is the protection
and restoration of all ecosystems.

The other demands include substantial increase in expenditure
for providing clean water and sanitation to the poor, put water
and sanitation services under the control of the local community
to ensure the benefit remains within the community and
involvement of women in the process which should be an indicator
of the success or failure of all future policies and action.

Author-activist Arundhati Roy in a scathing criticism of the
conference said that the organisers were part of a ''global
hydro-mafia`` who wanted to perpetuate and strengthen their
control over funds and water resources.

The well known social reformer Anna Hazare who is attending
the conference told DHNS in an interview that privatisation of
water resources and management was dangerous.

''Water is life and with privatisation we would be handing
over control over life to somebody else. The landless have as
much right over water as the landed...it is nature's gift...if it
is privatised how can poor get it?`` he asked.

Arundhati Roy said the concept of privatisation of water was a
frightening thought. ''It is a chilly thought that the army,
police and even nuclear weapons will be privatised,`` if such
ideas get an upper hand, she said.

The Delhi-based environmental activist organisation, Centre
for Science and Environment has said that privatisation was not
the solution for water-related problems but ''communitisation``
in which the community will invest, care for and allocate its
water resources.